Gary Player once claimed that Tiger Woods had the potential to win 30 majors during his career, but made a big mistake not being content with his game when he was at the peak of his powers.

Tiger Woods is undoubtedly one of the greatest golfers the game has ever seen. The debate, for most golf fans, usually comes down to the 50-year-old and Jack Nicklaus. Of course, it is Nicklaus who has the edge having won 18 majors during his career.

Few would have ever believed after Woods won the US Open in 2008 that he would only win one more major, having won 14 by the time he was 33. It is hard to see Woods winning another having not played in an official tournament since The Open Championship in 2024.

Obviously, Woods has had some problems away from the golf course over the last two decades. However, Gary Player once suggested that the most costly mistake for his career came when he decided to rebuild his golf swing.

The mistake Gary Player believes cost Tiger Woods at least five majors

Woods responded to winning the 1997 Masters by overhauling his swing, and would not win another major until the PGA Championship in 1999.

Meanwhile, he failed to win a major in 2003 and 2004. In fact, he only won one event in the latter season. And speaking on the Advantage Connors podcast in 2020, Player claimed that Woods’ desire to improve ended up hurting him.

“The worst thing they did with Tiger, Tiger wins the US Open by 15 shots, not five, 15. He goes for a lesson the next week, and everyone says why. He wanted to get better. He made a mistake, he got worse,” he said.

“Then he went to another guy and he got even worse. So for 11 years, he never won another major. In those 11 years, the way he was going, he might have won 20. Tiger might have won 30 majors had he never had another lesson. I know for a fact that if he never had a lesson, he would have won at least 20 majors.”

The golfer Gary Player believed was as talented as Tiger Woods

Woods’ achievements are all the more impressive because of the rivals he had. The likes of Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, and Phil Mickelson would all have surely won several more majors had Woods never emerged onto the scene.

Meanwhile, several other players had much shorter spells at the top of the game. One of the game’s biggest what ifs enjoyed most of his success in the years before Woods became a household name.

John Daly is one of the most popular players the game has had. He is certainly one of the sport’s greatest characters.

And Player made a significant claim about just how good Daly could have been had he dedicated himself to the game even more.

“John Daly, he was as talented as Tiger,” he said. “If John Daly had been a man that exercised and looked after himself and trained and worked on the mind, look, the man’s happy with what he did, that’s all that matters, but if he’d gone about it like Tiger, he would have been phenomenal.”

One of the reasons Daly was so beloved by fans was the fact that he had his flaws, and he would rarely try to hide them.

What is interesting is that both Woods and Daly now find themselves in a position where fans are delighted to see them simply doing well in their respective lives having travelled down two very different career paths.